1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image photographing/reproducing system and method, to a photographing apparatus and an image reproducing apparatus as well as an image reproducing method used in the above system and method.
Further, the present invention relates to a photographing apparatus such as a camera with a display screen, and the like.
More specifically, the present invention relates to an image photographing/reproducing system and method for transmitting various kinds of information between communication points such as gates and the like in predetermined regions such as parks, sightseeing spots, sports arenas, baseball grounds, amusement places, amusement parks, theme parks, and the like and a camera having a photographic film loaded thereon and capable of communicating with the communication points, a lens-fitted photographic film package capable of communicating with the communication points, and a camera corresponding to a card capable of communicating with the communication points and for creating reproduced images as prints and the like making use of photographed information recorded in the film, the lens-fitted photographic film package, the card, a database corresponding to a film, a center computer, and the like, and to a photographing apparatus and an image reproducing apparatus as well as an image reproducing method used in the image photographing/reproducing system and method.
Further, the present invention relates to a photographing apparatus such as a camera with a display screen, and the like in which a sheet-like image display device such as an electronic paper and the like is applied to an image display section.
2. Description of the Related Art
Lens-fitted photographic film packages, which have a photograph film previously loaded, when the package is manufactured, on a main body provided with a simple shutter mechanism, a simple film winding mechanism and the like, have been developed and put on sale as a simplified camera. Among them, there is known a lens-fitted photographic film package arranged such that a photographed date and time storing unit, which is composed of a watch subunit, a controller, and an IC memory, is provided with a unit main body (housing) of the package, a date and time signal is recorded in a storing region, which corresponds to a photographed frame, of the IC memory each time a shutter is released, and when prints are created on the completion of photographing, the date and time data stored in the IC memory is read out and converted into numerals and printed optically or using a printer on photographic papers together with images.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 8-43956 discloses a lens-fitted photographic film package in which photographed information is stored therein so that it is reproduced and used in a laboratory when prints are created.
Further, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 9-203956 discloses a camera with a data recording function. The camera is arranged such that an IC memory is assembled in a cartridge main body or a camera main body as well as an interface terminal, which permits the IC memory to be accessed externally of the camera main body, is disposed so as to expose to the outside of the camera main body; then, photographed data of each photographed frame, which can be acquired from a camera each time an image is photographed, is stored in the IC memory as well as predetermined data is recorded in the IC memory from the outside of the camera main body through the above interface terminal.
In contrast, at present, as personal computers come into widespread use, digital still cameras for reading the image data of an image photoelectrically making use of an image pickup device such as a CCD device and the like have come into wide use.
In general, in the digital still camera, since a liquid crystal display monitor, which displays an image to be photographed, is disposed on the back surface of the camera (surface on a photographer side), the photographer can confirm a position where a main subject is located in the image to be photographed (monitor image), a composition of the main subject, and the like only looking at the liquid crystal display monitor without looking through a finder. In addition to the above, the digital still camera can display an image having been photographed as well as display a plurality of images having been photographed as index images by reducing the size of them. Further, the digital still camera permits the photographer to set various parameters by displaying a parameter setting operation screen, through which the parameters are set, on the liquid crystal display monitor.
However, since the liquid crystal display monitor consumes a large amount of power because it displays an image by liquid crystal, the monitor is limited in size with a small display screen. Thus, the liquid crystal monitor has such a problem that it cannot sufficiently exhibit its function for permitting the photographer to sufficiently confirm an image to be photographed on the monitor and for sufficiently displaying an operation setting screen.
When various parameters are set using the parameter setting screen of the digital still camera, a hierarchical structure of the operation setting screen is deepened because the size of the liquid crystal monitor is limited, and an operation setting job tends to become time-consuming. When an image having been photographed is displayed on the liquid crystal display monitor for confirmation, a long time is necessary to display the image and the photographer is often made uncomfortable thereby.
Further, when the photographer takes a picture by setting the digital still camera at a low or high position, he or she must maintain an unnatural attitude at a low or high position in accordance with the position of the camera because the liquid crystal display monitor is disposed on the back surface of the digital still camera. Thus, it is often difficult for the photographer to confirm a position of a subject to be photographed and a composition of an image through the liquid crystal display monitor.
Furthermore, when the photographer takes a picture of himself or herself using the digital still camera, he or she must use a special adaptor such as a self-portrait mirror adaptor, for example, an adaptor mounted on Konica Revio Z3 (made by Konica Co. Ltd.).
As described above, digital still cameras available now have various disadvantages.
Incidentally, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-316397 discloses a technology for applying an electric paper sheet to an electronic display. Further, an article as to an electric paper sheet (electronic paper) appears in a magazine “ASCII”, pages 220–225, February 2000 and pages 242–247, March 2000.
According to the publication and the article, when an electric field is applied to countless microscopic spheres, which freely float in an oil fluid in a gap between two plastic sheet and half portions of which are painted black and the remaining half portions of which are painted white, from the outside of the plastic films, the spheres can be rotated and fixed. At that time, the white surfaces and the black surfaces of the spheres can be caused to face a surface of the plastic sheets by the rotation of them, whereby a black and white pattern and character can be caused to come to the surface of the plastic sheets, and this principle can be applicable to display a color image.
Further, according to the publication, when transparent microcapsules each having a diameter of about 0.1 mm and containing a multiplicity of white spheres floating in a blue fluid therein are two-dimensionally disposed between sheets and the white spheres in microcapsules are moved in one direction by Coulomb attraction by applying an electric field to the microcapsules from both the surfaces of the sheets, a color of the portion of the sheets, where the microcapsules containing the while spheres having moved in the one direction are located, is changed from blue to white. The publication describes that a color image can be reproduced based on this principle.
However, any of the conventional photographing apparatuses in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication Nos. 8-43956, 9-203956 and the like is such that photographed information is recorded in a camera with a data recording function, for example, in a lens-fitted photographic film package to which an IC memory is added, and the photographed information is simply used when a print is processed. Thus, in the conventional photographing apparatuses, a function for improving an amusement property such as a combination of a photographed image with a specific character according to, for example, a photographed place is not taken into consideration at all. Therefore, when an amusement property is required as in a picture taken in an amusement park, a requirement of customers is not sufficiently satisfied.
Further, the electronic paper disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-316397 and the literature has such advantages that the power consumption of the electronic paper is smaller than that of a conventional liquid crystal display because an image displayed once by application of an electric field is maintained without disappearing until a next electric field is applied and that the electronic paper does not have visual field dependency as in the liquid crystal display which greatly varies a degree of density of an image depending upon an angle at which the liquid crystal display is viewed. However, there is a problem that the electronic paper does not yet become commercially practical.
Furthermore, while a film liquid crystal using ferroelectric liquid crystal has been developed as the electronic paper, there is a problem that it is not yet practically used.